Surely never in this world did love link together two souls more diametrically opposite than Mercy Philbrick’s and Stephen White’s.  It needed no long study or especial insight into character to know which of the two would receive the more and suffer the less, in the abnormal and unfortunate relation on which they had entered.  But no presentiment warned Mercy of what lay before her.  She was like a traveller going into a country whose language he has never heard, and whose currency he does not understand.  However eloquent he may be in his own land, he is dumb and helpless here; and of the fortune with which he was rich at home he is robbed at every turn by false exchanges which impose on his ignorance.  Poor Mercy!  Vaguely she felt that life was cruel to Stephen and to her; but she accepted its cruelty to her as an inevitable part of her oneness with him.  Whatever he had to bear she must bear too, especially if he were helped by her sharing the burden.  And her heart glowed with happiness, recalling the expression with which he had said,—­

“Remember, Mercy, you are the one bright thing in my life.”

She understood, or thought she understood, precisely the position in which he was placed.

“Very possibly he has even promised his mother,” she said to herself, “even promised her he would never be married.  It would be just like her to exact such a promise from him, and never think any thing of it.  And, even if he has not, it is all the same.  He knows very well no human being could live in the house with her, to say nothing of his being so terribly poor.  Poor, dear Stephen! to think of our little rent being more than half his income!  Oh, if there were only some way in which I could contrive to give him money without his knowing it.”

If any one had said to Mercy at this time:  “It was not honorable in this man, knowing or feeling that he could not marry you, to tell you of his love, and to allow you to show him yours for him.  He is putting you in a false position, and may be blighting your whole life,” Mercy would have repelled the accusation most indignantly.  She would have said:  “He has never asked me for any such love as that.  He told me most honestly in the very beginning just how it was.  He always said he would never fetter me by a word; and, once when I forgot myself for a moment, and threw myself into his very arms, he only kissed my forehead as if I were his sister, and put me away from him almost with a reproof.  No, indeed! he is the very soul of honor.  It is I who choose to love him with all my soul and all my strength.  Why should not a woman devote her life to a man without being his wife, if she chooses, and if he so needs her?  It is just as sacred and just as holy a bond as the other, and holier, too; for it is more unselfish.  If he can give up the happiness of being a husband and father, for the sake of his duty to his mother, cannot I give up the happiness of being a wife and mother, for the sake of my affection and duty towards him?”